Ohhhhhh, it's going to be awesome seeing you work your magic on my favorite Axis fighter! 

Glad to see you walking on the wild side with this one  Pit is gorgeous. looking forward to another work of plastic art

Very nice OOB build!

Toshi

I’ve always thought these planes looked very neat, almost like a Japanese P-47. Nice to see a Japanese fighter that isn’t a Zero

Cockpit looks sparse, but I think you’re right, they were probably pretty spartan anyway. Paint looks nice to me, it’ll be nice to see what magic you pull on the exterior. 

Nice works so far. I commissioned a N1K1-J 1:48 to my builder today, it's from Otaki. 

Thanks MM, I'm glad your following along.  

Well, my P-38 woes have sort of rendered this turkey to the back burner.  I did designate a little time for it the other day.  The Hasegawa wing root gaps reared their ugly head on this kit.  I solved them by supergluing a toothpick under the cockpit to spread the fuselage slightly.  I suppose you could use sprue too.  Your choice.  It worked great.  

Other than that it was a great fit. 

I added a primer coat to await some Aluminum.  I ordered some AK Interactive chipping fluid as I intend to try the peeling paint technique on this subject.  It should be interesting.  

Nice common sense practical solution that I wouldn't have thought of. Thanks lawdog

Looks great, lawdog! Should have probably done this on my Spitfire. I did it the hard way, though. This is obviously a Hasegawa theme... I wonder why this happens so much!

Question about the Alclad primer, do you just shoot Alclad over top of the primer, or do you spray some clear over it? I’m working on a car kit and am trying to decide which route to take for my metallic parts. 

Good luck with the chipping!

You’ve really got my attention as I’m interested in the chipping technique.

Your friend, Toshi

She's lookin' good!!!

BTW: I've tried the chipping fluid but I personally can't see much difference in it and hairspray. You can even just pour the hairspray into your airbrush and spray it the same way you do the chipping fluid.

RadMax8

Question about the Alclad primer, do you just shoot Alclad over top of the primer, or do you spray some clear over it? I’m working on a car kit and am trying to decide which route to take for my metallic parts. 

 

Thanks guys...Maker, your welcome.

Max, it goes right on top of the primer. I find that sometimes it leaves some rough patches here and there, but those can be sanded out with 2000 grit sandpaper. You may need to sand the primer before the NMF too.  

Gamera, thanks for the compliment and info. Unfortunately I already bought the stuff. Besides, I tend to prefer using stuff that is designed for modeling. One of the reasons I don’t particularly like Future. Others swearby it but I’ve never had much luck with it. 

I‘ll be throwing down some metal tonight. 

Sounds good to me.! I'm just throwing out options, if they're unworkable or silly you're not hurting my feelings if you don't use them.

Looking forward to seeing her with the NM on.

I find myself between projects at the moment.  This one has been giving me the evil eye from the shelf so I figured I'd drag it out again.  It got back burnered over a year ago when the back of the spinner went missing and getting a replacement from Hasegawa was impossible at the time (probably still is....Hasegawa is not known for good customer service). I figured I'd wait until I found a reasonably priced kit on ebay then I'd use it to fabricate a new spinner back out of scrape styrene....a visual reference if you will. So I got cracking....

I left off after I sprayed the airframe Alclad Duraluminum.  If you recall, this will be a experiment with chipping fluid.  I'm going to go for heavy chipping without overdoing it...if that's possible.  I will be using this stuff, which is essentially the hairspray method so I'm told. 

I sprayed the stuff on the NFM and let it dry.  I forgot I bought Montex for this project, so out those came.  I painted the appropriate color then masked thusly.  I also added the wing walk stripes and yellow leading edge markings and taped them off.

The underside will remain NMF, but the upper will be XF-11 JN Green.  I did a little preshading.  

I then added the JN Green. It's quite dark and covered most of the preshading.  I added some XF-57 Buff and faded it a bit.  

After removing the masks, I got to the chipping.  I wanted it in certain areas, like heavier on the port wing root, a bit on front cowl, and more on leading edge wing root where the prop would blow stuff back.  Again, I didn't want to go crazy with it.  I wet an old Testors stiff paint brush and started rubbing some off.  The water helped break up the paint and I was surprised about the control I had.  I was fairly happy.  I stopped here with the risk of overdoing it.

The underside got some attention too.  I sprayed the control surfaces XF-76 IJN Grey Green to simulate the fabric and also sprayed some panels different shades of Alclad. This will get dirtied up later.  

A few coats of Alclad Aqua Gloss went down to seal everything. I still have a couple decals that need to go down.

Overall I'm quite pleased with how this stuff works.  I think I got the look I was going for.  I see more in the future.    

Rambo

Fantastic job. I always learn something on all your builds.

 

Thanks Rambo...nice to have you along. 

Looks fantastic Joe. Did you apply the chipping fluid with an airbrush? If so did you spray the entire model with it or just the areas that you wanted chipped? Can’t wait to see the finished project

Greatmaker

Looks fantastic Joe. Did you apply the chipping fluid with an airbrush? If so did you spray the entire model with it or just the areas that you wanted chipped? Can’t wait to see the finished project

 

Thanks Robert.  The whole model with an airbrush. It come airbrush ready.  Next time I think I'll only spray it where I want to chip though.  

tempestjohnny

Nice. I learned something new today.

 

Thanks for stopping by Johnny..

I finally got this turkey off my bench.  A long time coming.  As I said, this one was primarily an exercise in the use of chipping fluid.  I tried to concentrate around the areas I thought would see the most wear.  Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  Next time I will use a lighter green because the IJN is so dark I find it hard to weather.  I prefer the IJA green much better.  For the wash(s) I started with Flory and then finished with some AK oil here and there, although the latter is hard to see. 

To recap, it's the Hasegawa kit built mostly out of the box. I did add PE belts and Quickboost cannons, but only because I already had them.  Markings were painted on with Montex masks. I didn't bother rigging the engine because not much can be seen in there. 

The subject represents a Shiden from 402 Hikotai 341 Kokutai in the Phillipines in 1944. Try as I may, I could not find a pilot specific Shiden.  Perhaps they flew whatever was available in the Phillipines at that time. These were reportedly very unreliable.    

That about sums it up...thanks for following. 

Now that I'm back in Pacific mode, perhaps it's time for a Zero?

I don't know how you do it Joe ... so many fine builds in so short a time! This one is no exception.

You don't work for a living of course, you get up at 5 am, breakfast at 5:45, at the bench by 6:30 and build models until the lids of your eyes get droopy around 11 pm. Right?

You know I envy both your talent and your work ethic. I'm retired and I can't seem to motivate myself to put in the time at the bench that many here do .. but it's great to be able to reference such outstanding work. I also learn from you Joe ... thank you.

1943Mike

I don't know how you do it Joe ... so many fine builds in so short a time! This one is no exception.

You don't work for a living of course, you get up at 5 am, breakfast at 5:45, at the bench by 6:30 and build models until the lids of your eyes get droopy around 11 pm. Right?

You know I envy both your talent and your work ethic. I'm retired and I can't seem to motivate myself to put in the time at the bench that many here do .. but it's great to be able to reference such outstanding work. I also learn from you Joe ... thank you.

 

Thanks Mike.  I appreciate your kind words. Actually my bench time is at a premium.  I work nights, 12 hour shifts.  On the night before I go back to work, I stay up all night to reaclimate my body to sleeping during the day.  This yields me 6 or 7 hours of bench time in once or twice a week.  I find it very relaxing....me, my bench, and Net Flix....lol.   

Rambo

Another fantastic build! I'm in the same boat you are, I work 3rd shift 10hour days 6days a week they have started giving us every other weekend off since right before Christmas except for this weekend. Anyway you get alot done for such little time.

 

Thanks Clint.  Our shifts are from 6p to 6a, so it't more like afternoons/midnights I suppose. One of my shifts is an 8 hour and we get every other weekend off, which is nice.  The only downside is that sometimes I have trouble sleeping like a normal person on my days off. I usually need a sleeping aid.  I've found that Olly stuff works pretty well.  Thanks again for dropping in.       

lawdog114

 

 

  I've found that Olly stuff works pretty well.       

 

Bourbon works too :)

Good to see this one finished. I like the chipping; not overly done. Fantastic job as usual.

Gorgeous as always Joe. What different shades of alclad did you use?